The SAIS China Forum

Presents

Dr. Anne F. Thurston

Senior Research Professor and Director of the Grassroots China Initiative

Johns Hopkins SAIS

on

“Writing The Noodle Maker of Kalimpong, the untold story of the Dalai Lama’s brother and his struggle for Tibet”

Wednesday, April, 15, 2015, 5:00-7:00 pm

Kenney Auditorium

1740 Massachusetts Avenue, NW、

Washington, DC 20036

When Indian president Nehru refused political asylum to the Fourteenth Dalai Lama in 1956, the Dalai Lama’s older brother Gyalo Thondup joined hands with the CIA to organize the underground Tibetan resistance. When the 1959 rebellion in Lhasa prompted the Dalai Lama’s escape to India, Gyalo Thondup negotiated his brother’s asylum and was at the border to welcome him. In 1979, when Deng Xiaoping sought to reestablish ties with the Tibetans in exile, he invited Gyalo Thondup to Beijing, declaring that except for independence, everything was negotiable.  For years, Gyalo Thondup shuttled back and forth between India and China in what proved to be fruitless negotiations. 

Gyalo Thondup has teamed with SAIS professor Anne Thurston to write his autobiography.  Thurston’s earlier books include co-authorship of the international best seller, The Private Life of Chairman Mao and Enemies of the People:  The Ordeal of China’s Intellectuals during the Great Cultural Revolution. Now retired from politics, Gyalo Thondup runs a noodle factory in Kalimpong, India.

Reception follows the presentation